


this last of you

by hotrodngold (Krystalicekitsu)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Issues, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Self-Discovery, Sexual Identity, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:44:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/pseuds/hotrodngold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John doesn't talk much anymore. But that's fine because he's fired his incompetent therapist and the one person worth talking to isn't- Isn't around anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this last of you

**Author's Note:**

> I need to thank the utterly brilliant [ledtoleadlovers](https://twitter.com/#!/ledtoleadlovers) for the wonderful Britpicking and the excitement. *kiss* You're a dear.

It wasn't that John didn't know it was completely screwed in the head. He knew it. Didn't need a psych degree, or a shrink to tell him so (he'd fired Ella three weeks in when she suggested that the cases, _Sherlock_ , might've just been in his head).

John knew Sherlock was… dead. Never coming back. Gone.

He couldn't move out of Baker Street.

Couldn't clean up the moldering experiment on wine vs. blood in carpet fibres.

Couldn't-

Well. Couldn't do a lot.

His limp had come back. Not completely, not entirely. He didn't have to use the metal cane from PT or struggle to lift his leg up stairs. It was harder in the cold, the rain. It was harder to run. Cramps stiffened up the joint those nights he couldn’t get to sleep (often). (Nearly every night, in fact, and maybe he shouldn't have told Ella this, maybe this was the- no. No use remembering.)

While his hand never trembled like it did when he was first invalidated, he occasionally lost feeling. A cup of tea would be ignored until the loss of feeling caused him to pour scalding tea into his lap. Nerveless, books were known to slip from his hand, tumble to the floor, cost him his place and his patience (he stopped reading books by Sherley Deer and J.D. Home after that, stuck to medical journals with names like H Morley and K Resnick, G Yoshinobu).

(Before he'd fired her) John had tried one of Ella's attempts to get him to 'let go' (he didn't know how to tell her, tell anyone, that it didn't feel like he couldn't let go- that it felt, sometimes, like Sherlock wouldn't let go of _him_ , like elegant, pianist's hands were still tugging at his wrists, resting over his shoulder, gently pushing against the small of his back). She'd suggested that he go into Sherlock's room (well, she'd said 'his room', when John's fairly certain she actually meant the living room, seeing as that was the place Sherlock had claimed as his own far more than the cramped cubicle with a bed and his clothes), close his eyes, and talk.

John doesn't talk much, anymore.

Still, he couldn't (at the time, only at the time, stupid _stupid_ psycho-babble) deny that the idea had some possible merit (if only because the smell, however faint, of Sherlock might help keep the world from spinning underneath his feet).

It'd been easier than he'd thought it'd be.

(In his imaginings, it always went like his sojourns to the cemetery went- except for that one, desperate plea, three weeks after the funeral, his first visit- with empty, stuttering sentences, full of words but devoid of meaning because how do you say 'I wish I'd told you what you meant, even though I know, I _know_ you knew, because you knew everything' to someone who couldn't smile quaintly back at you? In his imaginings it always started with a stuttered 'hello' and continued with a stumbling, self-conscious account of his day **Boring!** and notes on how he's not sure if Mrs. Hudson is seeing anyone, but she's been a little happier lately **You see, John, but you don't observe.** and that Lestrade tried to phone again, but he'd hung up the first two times and then turned his mobile off after the third **That man has always been irrationally stubborn.** and wrapped up subtly, or very not so subtly, with discussions on the merits of taking Sarah out to dinner (stumbling slightly over the 'S', always wanting to continue it, always, with '-herlock') because he has no real reason to say no, even if he has no real interest in saying yes. In his imaginings, though, this would always be broken up by Sherlock's voice behind him, slightly to the right, warm and dry with- **I'm sure she's a nice girl, John, but-** and a very **Obvious.** deduction about her wandering eyes, or her inability to be flexible, or how she had a huge gambling debt. John's not sure what it says that his imaginary Sherlock is dissuading him from a date with Sarah. It's very possible he shouldn't look too closely at that.)

John's first try didn't go well.

He tried it in Sherlock's bedroom, a place that wasn't filled with Sherlock _alive_ , supposedly easier to manage, easier to pull away, disassociate from. He'd opened the door, gotten three steps from the door. Stopped. And then-

The scarf. The first one. The one they'd met in. The one Sherlock had half disintegrated at the ends by leaning too far into a vat of hydrochloric acid once (he'd sat, stunned for half a moment after John had torn it off him, fingers clenching and wriggling into the industrial catwalk beneath his arse before throwing back his head and _laughing_ like a loon, like nearly getting his head _dissolved_ was the best high in the world and John could only stare at him, stare and then chuckle and then giggle and then laugh because there was nothing else he could do- this was _Sherlock_ and there was really nothing else you could do).

When John next blinked, he was on the floor. Or, well, judging from the view of the ceiling, he was on the floor, sprawled out, thigh muscles in his right leg twitching uncontrollably, light shouting out that'd he'd spent several hours there.

John Hamish Watson had picked himself back up, crawled to the wall, and limped his way to the kitchen.

He hadn't slept that night (too many nightmares _no one could be that clever you could i'm a fraud no sherlock no_ and not enough alcohol, not nearly enough alcohol in the world), and he hadn't bothered trying the night after that (sometime, two days after or so, he'd managed to pass out on the sofa, though he'd woke crying, Mrs. Hudson above him silent and looking like he couldn't have made it hurt more if he'd _shot_ her).

Three days after his afternoon unconscious on the sofa, he'd tried again (he hadn't mentioned to Ella either his intent to his intent, or the attempt of his intent. It felt too personal and too ridiculous.)

He'd been prepared for the- for the scarf. This time.

Memories still hit him like a hammer between the eyes ( _with your collar turned up like a 221B Baker Street and the name's Sherlock Holmes_ and tiny, quiet moments picking up after the man or fast and excited moments rushing out the flat) but he could brace against them, weather them out like a hiker in an unexpected winter storm (it was winter, you expected storms but maybe not _this_ one, not _quite_ like this, though you packed your bedding and your extra shovel and your torch because it's _winter_ ). And John had grit his teeth together, past the tears, past the sobs and said-

'Sherlock.'

and collapsed to the floor again, gasping, sobbing, forcing out _i love you i'm sorry why didn't you believe me why did you do that come back i'm sorry stop being dead_ until he found himself crying and sobbing into Sherlock's pillow, hand clenched in the scarf, keening against the pain. And

Quiet.

Utterly still and silent and John couldn't hear anything, nearly gave himself a heart attack trying to make out any noise before he realised the one sound he could hear was the harsh rasp of his breath in his ears, but he wasn't _deaf_ wasn't _dea-_

Though, that wouldn't have been so bad, would i-

John sat upon Sherlock's bed, wrapped in Sherlock and nothing else, four weeks after they'd buried him and John's _everything_ and realised he had _nothing_ , fought against the realisation and the despair that the rest of his life would be lived through this haze, this funeral shroud of ash and grey and-

John came back to himself on the floor again, blankets cocooned around him, nearly strangling but they smelled like him, like Sherlock and John bit back a sob when _the smell won't last it'll go away and then there'll be nothing of him anywhere_ crossed his mind and-

'I loved you, I loved you how could you leave me, why would you do that, I loved you, I didn't care why would you do that I loved you-'

and-

scrambling at the snap and zip of his trousers-

scarf shoved against his face, fist in his mouth muffle the wounded keening stop his soul from leavingalreadygonegone-

trousers around his thighs, pants pulled far enough down for this, hand over his thigh long fingers and defttouchgentleandstrong-

wrapped in Sherlock's scent, blankets as his arms, corner of the slipping mattress chin on a shoulder lips against his earbreathonhisneck-

**John.**

He comes, world ringing in his ears, full of sound again, loud and harsh and John sobs for his loss, for what probably would never have been but now never _ever_ would be, for his heart that was and won't ever be again because John doesn't know how to love by halves and he gave the whole of it to a man now dead and buried and he never kept any for himself.

When John calms enough to pull himself together he sits up and sobs again. He bites at the scarf and sobs because he's gotten it all over the bedclothes, all over Sherlock's bedclothes and he has to wash them, has to clean away Sherlock's scent and Sherlock won't mock him for doing the washing. Sherlock won't mock him for separating the colours from the whites and the sheets on the sofa, and Sherlock won't toss balls of clean socks at the back of his head and Sherlock won't steal back his delicates with a huff that means 'thank you'. John has to do the washing and _Sherlock won't be there_.

And it'll be that way for the rest of his life, turning around to speak only to realise the one he's addressing hasn't simply slipped away for a moment.

Sherlock's gone, and he's never coming back.

John buries his face in half a burnt scarf and weeps.


End file.
